


again and again and again

by labeledbones



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 02:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13377918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labeledbones/pseuds/labeledbones
Summary: The first time you tell him you’re in love with him, he laughs.aka six times Timmy tells/tries to tell Armie he's in love with him and all of them are angsty.





	again and again and again

The first time you tell him you’re in love with him, he laughs. 

You’re both too drunk and the bar is loud and you think maybe he heard you wrong. So you say it again louder, “I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU,” leaning in close, your mouth grazing his jaw.

He still just laughs, punches you lightly on the shoulder, slings a heavy drunk arm around you. “Me too, brother,” he says and you wonder if he’s just being dense or if he’s purposefully misunderstanding you. 

You say, “Not like that,” but you say it quietly. He doesn’t hear you. He turns around and tries to get the bar tenders attention. 

You take the shot he hands you when he turns back around and — when his fingers brush yours, when he smiles at you before tipping his head back to take his own shot, when his throat bobs — you think that you would die for him. 

You swallow the burning alcohol and you swallow the words back down. Swallow and swallow until the words are so small inside you, until they go back to meaning nothing. 

You won’t tell him again.

**

The second time you tell him you’re in love with him, you’re on a plane, somewhere between New York and LA, but you can’t remember which direction you’re going in this time. 

You are trying to read the tattered copy of _A Little Life_ that he lent you months ago, when the plane starts to shake. The seatbelt light dings on, the pilot’s voice tries to reassure you this is normal. You put the book down, close your eyes, make sure your seatbelt is tight. The plane feels like it’s a Christmas present being shaken by an overeager kid. You don’t think this should be normal. 

You look over at him, anxious but trying to play it cool, a weak smile. You expect him to make his usual joke about the plane crashing, but he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches over and takes your hand and when you squeeze his fingers, he squeezes yours back. 

He lets you hold onto him until the plane steadies itself again, your palm sweating against his. 

When the seatbelt light dings off again and the pilot announces you’ve made it out of whatever hell storm you just passed through, you look over at him and mumble, “Thanks.” 

And then you add, “My hero,” in your best damsel in distress voice just to get him to laugh, take the overwhelming concern out of his eyes, but you mean it. He saved you. Not just now, but all the damn time. 

He smiles faintly at your joke, and then you realize he’s still holding your hand. You look at your hands tangled together on the armrest and you are thinking about the rest of your life. So you say, “There’s something I need to tell you.” So you say, “I think — Fuck, I _know_ I’m in lo — ”

And then the flight attendant shows up, asking, “More coffee?”

He lets go of your hand and clears his throat. He says, “Please,” to the flight attendant, smiling up at her. 

You don’t want any, but you nod anyway when she asks, and you drink the scalding brown water down in one go just to avoid looking at his face. You don’t say anything else the rest of the flight. 

You pretend to sleep. 

**

The third time you tell him you’re in love with him, he isn’t listening. 

You get back to the hotel and it’s so late, but in the elevator he leans back against the wall, looks at you and says, “Come back to my room,” and you are immediately just nodding and nodding and nodding, even though he’s quick to add, “Just for a second. I have that boxing video I wanna show you.” 

“Okay,” you say, having no idea what video he’s talking about, not having the heart to say you don’t really care about a boxing video. You just want to be with him for as many minutes as he’ll allow.

The second his door closes behind you, he starts to undress. You watch his suit jacket fall to the floor. And then his shirt, and then his undershirt. And then, god, the sound of his belt buckle hitting the ground, the look of him standing in his boxer briefs by the window. “Sorry,” he says. “I couldn’t wait to get out of that thing.” 

You can feel your skin burning, but you manage to say, “I’ve seen your dick before, man.” 

He laughs, shoulders shaking. “Fair enough,” he says and unceremoniously pulls off his underwear too. “Freedom,” he sighs. 

You find yourself suddenly very interested in the ceiling. 

He pulls his laptop out of his bag and gets into bed with it, patting the empty space next to him. You toe off your shoes and obediently crawl in next to him, joking, “Well, I feel overdressed,” when your fully clothed shoulder knocks into his bare one. 

“Asshole,” he mutters while he’s busy pulling up the video on YouTube. 

When he gets it loaded, he leans back against the headboard, a hand behind his head. You sit next to him with your legs crossed, trying desperately to ignore his body, failing miserably. 

He’s dead asleep by the time the video is over, even though it was only 11 minutes long. All six foot five inches of him sprawled out naked next to you on the king size bed. 

You watch him breathe and then you say it quietly, “I’m in love with you,” with your fingers reaching out, hovering just above his skin, touching but not touching, moving over his face and his chest and lower, lower.

“I’m _in love_ with you,” you say one more time as you feel the heat of his groin against your fingertips, something so human and true about it, reminding you he is alive, real, here. 

Then he stirs in his sleep and you quickly draw your hand back. He turns over, cracks one eye open, says, “You still here?” 

All you can do is smile weakly and say, “Yep, still here,” And then, standing up, “Just leaving.” 

He lifts a hand and you stupidly think he’s trying to reach for you. You’re halfway to touching his fingers with yours. But he just waves, dropping his hand back down, and says, “See you in the morning.” 

In the hallway, you kick at the carpet, “I’m in love with you,” mocking yourself. 

“So fucking stupid,” you say as you slide in your key card. 

You fall asleep still fully dressed, thinking about the surface area of his skin, how you would map it out with your mouth, an intrepid explorer. 

**

The fourth time you tell him you’re in love with him, you put it in a letter. 

You’re in New York and he’s in Los Angeles and you get it into your dumbass brain that it would be romantic to write it down on paper and mail it to him. 

You also think it would be better if you didn’t have to see his face when you say it, if you didn’t have to hear your voice breaking on the words. Mostly you are a coward who wants to send this feeling far away from you. 

Even Pauline laughs at you when you tell her the idea. “It’s 2017, Tim Tim. Just DM the asshole or something.” When you point out that he’s not even on twitter, she just laughs harder. 

But you write the damn letter anyway, even though your handwriting is terrible and you have to start over four times before you finally know what you want to say which ends up just being this: _Armie, I’m so fucking in love with you that I don’t know how to live anymore._

Too melodramatic, maybe. Too desperate, definitely. 

You don’t send it. You shove it in an envelope, shove the envelope into a drawer, shove the drawer back into its framework, shove your whole fucking beating heart back into your rib cage where you swear you won’t let it out again.

**

The fifth time you tell him you’re in love with him, he says it for you. 

Once you’ve gotten your award, given your speech, done all that’s required of you, you get up from the table and brush past his shoulder, whispering, “Stairwell, five minutes.” 

He laughs when you pull the joint from the breast pocket of your suit. “Always prepared,” you grin. 

He shakes his head and watches you light it. He says, “I fucking love you,” as you take a pull and hand it to him. 

Soon, you’re both just about high enough to consider going back into that room with all those people, but instead, you’re sitting on the stairs, looking at each other. 

He suddenly says, “I wish you were never sad.” 

Your brain takes a while to process the words, and then you wait for him to laugh, because it’s a weird thing to say. 

He doesn’t laugh. He just keeps looking at you. And so you say, “I’m not sad,” sounding sad as you say it. 

Now he does laugh. “Bad liar,” he says. 

You want to kiss him, want to lean forward and kiss him, show him what it would take for you to not be sad. But your body is heavy, and there is too much space between you and him. There is too much. 

“You’re in love with me,” he says, his voice steady, almost severe, like he’s accusing you of something. 

You shrug. “Does it make any difference?” you ask. 

“I don’t know,” he says.

You’re grateful for his honesty, but you suddenly, desperately need to be away from him. 

You stand up too quickly, sending your head spinning. His hand reaches up to your hip to steady you and you look down at it, look down at him looking back up at you. 

“I don’t know,” he says again, and you think there’s something pleading in his eyes. 

You feel his grip start to tighten on your hip, but you’re gone, out the door, back into that large hall full of people you admire who, for god knows what reason, seem to admire you too. 

You rush by Elizabeth, mumbling, “Stairs,” when she asks where Armie is, and then you’re out on the sidewalk. 

You fill your lungs with cold, cold air until you feel almost nothing at all. 

**

The sixth time you tell him you’re in love with him, you swear to yourself it will be the last time. 

The two of you are hiking up some god forsaken hill that seems to be made entirely of dust, the Californian sun beating down on the back of your neck, sending sweat dripping down your spine. You watch his powerful thighs propel him up and up and up, his entire body moving with a strength and ease you doubt you’ll ever know. 

You do not think about touching him, you do not do not do not. Until all you are thinking about is touching him. 

You reach the top, finally. And while he barely shows any signs of exertion, you are gulping down water as if you’ve been lost in the desert for days. He wordlessly hands you what’s left in his water bottle once it’s clear yours is empty. 

“Easy tiger,” he says gently as water dribbles down your chin.

“Are you even human?” you ask, wiping your face with the collar of your t-shirt.

He just raises his eyebrows in response and takes a step toward the edge of the hill.

You stand next to him, looking out over the entirety of Los Angeles. What you think is that this place is not your home. 

And then he turns to you and says, “Nice, right?” Hands on his hips, smiling his gleaming white smile at you, the hair on his arms impossibly gold against his bronzed skin. What you think is that maybe this place is your home. 

You say, “Yeah, it’s good.”

He shoves you gently, his fingers tickling your side just a little. “I know, I know. You’re thinking about all the dozens of views in New York that are way better than this smog filled one.” 

“That’s not what I was thinking,” you say, shaking your head. 

When you look at him, the sun forces you to squint, turns his face into a shadow. You step forward so the sun is behind his head and you can see him, but then you’re so close to him. You can feel the heat wafting from his body, smell the sweat on his skin, almost taste the salt of it. 

“Timmy,” he says, voice low, rough. You love the sound of it, more than anything else you’ve ever heard maybe. The sound of him barely holding on. 

You stand there, close to him, looking up into his face. You know that he already knows, but you still want to tell him, need to tell him. You say, “You’re my favorite thing in the whole fucking universe, you know that?” You say, “I am irrevocably in love with you.” You say, “Please.” 

You watch him open his mouth and close his mouth. You watch his eyes search your face for something. You watch him. 

You swear to yourself again that this is the last time you will say it. Except that he kisses you, his mouth soft and open against yours, a tentative question, his hands on your face, fingers in your hair. And you, nearly collapsing with the feeling the surges through you, can only hold onto his forearms and kiss him back, your mouth pressing back a definitive answer. 

And you know, like you’ve always known, that you’ll say it again and again and again and again.


End file.
